He Gave Me Such a Gift, He Protected Us

I was supposed to go out to lunch with jeffie, since he's working at the lakewood post office now. I was all excited, but I got a text not to come, and that he'd explain it to me later. I was so bummed. We picked him up after work, and it turns out that there was a murderer loose, and was last seen heading toward 117th (where we were meeting, and where his actual route is). The man had taken his family's lives, and Jeff learned later in the day that he was found, and had taken his own life.When he told me this, I just welled up with tears. I love him so much. He was thinking of our safety, and didn't want us anywhere near there. LOL, he didn't tell me about it until afterwards, because he knew I'd be so worred that he still had to carry near there.I just wanted to brag on him for a little bit. We all need to brag on our love more often, they do so much for us.

Two Pics of Giddy

Taffy checking out her new stuff

My sister gave us her cute little parakeet, Taffy. We've been enjoying her immensely. Today, I got her a new food dish and water dish. I opened the cage to install them, and she flew out. Giddy was so excited. He kept trying to touch her. She would fly around, and land on the floor, and he would get right next to her and crouch down, to touch her. She wouldn't let him though. She ended up flying into the kitchen, and I rescued her with a towel, and put her safely back in the cage. I'd love to someday be able to train her, but ah, for now, she's just a lil' wild one.

She's spent all afternoon, checking the new items out. She has to make sure they're not "enemies" LOL. So far, she feels great about the water dish, and is on to discovering her food dish. She keeps making her way over to look at it, and just a second ago, she was brave enough to bite at the top of the silo with her beak. That was good enough for the moment, and she flew to the other side to be with her mirror friend, "Taffay" (Gabey named her mirror friend.)

Taffy loves her mirror friend, and sleeps next to him and talks to it, and nuzzles it. Her bell toy, is her rival. It's so funny to see her "fight" it. She'll bite it and flap her wings at it.

FACEinHOLE

Create your own FACEinHOLE

FACEinHOLE

Create your own FACEinHOLE

FACEinHOLE

Create your own FACEinHOLE

FACEinHOLE

Create your own FACEinHOLE

FACEinHOLE

Create your own FACEinHOLE

FACEinHOLE

Create your own FACEinHOLE

FACEinHOLE

Create your own FACEinHOLE

The Dangers of a Critical Spirit

2 Samuel 6:15-16 "So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart."

2 Samuel 6:20-23 "Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself!
And David said unto Michal, It was before the LORD, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the LORD, over Israel: therefore will I play before the LORD.
And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight: and of the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honour.
Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death."

This passage has come up twice for me in 2 days. I think that's shows that it wants to be noticed.
Our evangelist preached on this passage last night... about the dangers of a critical spirit.

Michal had a critical spirit, and it limited her view of the blessings... he pointed out that she wasn't down with everyone praising the Lord, but up looking out a tiny window... a lot of times people with a critical spirit "know" that their view is the best one... it robs you from seeing blessings. David was doing all this for the Lord, and the Bible doesn't say at all the the Lord was displeased by any of what happened.

Secondly, it makes you become "bound by bitterness" Poor Michael was so bitter. She had such a rough life. But bitterness will eat away at you, and ruin you.

The third point was how having a critical spirit causes you to be "branded by barreness" people will notice something's not right, and distance themselves... your Christian life, your friendships... everything will suffer.

It was such a good message, I really needed it.
Then, today, I stopped by my friend, Kristi's blog, and she had the same passage for the same theme. EErie, lol. Here is the link to her blog about it.... http://kristi71.blogspot.com/2009/02/inappropriateness-or-personal.html

Good for You, Dad!

A few weeks ago, my dad got bad news from the doctor. He went in for a swollen wrist that wasn't healing, and they took some tests. Tests are always scary. They came back that the wrist was from gout, from his high blood pressure. Also, though, they showed that his sugar counts were over 400. Diabetes. My dad has always been healthy, fighting through every physical obstacle, and praise the Lord, this moment was no different. Since finding out how his his sugar was, my dad has gotten a monitor, and taken his counts twice a day, and totally changed his diet. He has cut out sugar quite a lot, and with the double problem of high blood pressure, he's also having to cut out a lot of the high sodium processed foods too. Patty Nanna, his wife, and a great stepmommy, has just been a trouper in helping find and cook foods that will help him. His counts have steadily been lowering, and today, he told me that his blood sugar was 100!!! That count is normal! PRAISE a GREAT GOD!! Now, he's going to have to keep dealing with this, but he may be able to fight this with diet and excercise alone, I'm so thankful. Good for you, Daddy! I'm so proud of you!

Elizabeth

Need some Flowers!

I'm looking out the window and all I see is White, and Brown. So, I will look at my computer screen instead.

What Giddy Does While I'm working, LOL.

I need to write this down. This kind of thing happens all the time.

I put Giddy in the playpen so I could do the dishes, and when I came back in, he had ripped down the decorations off our window and was ripping them up.

After dinner, I cleaned off the stove and did some pots, and came back into the living room to Giddy eating a dry erase marker, and red marks all over the wood floor. (I'm so thankful that they clearly mark "Non Toxic" on these things)

Later, I ran down and did a little laundry and came back to the entire box of cheerios on the kitchen floor, and Giddy eating it by the fistful. I actually wish I had a photo of it, as he's just a beautiful boy, and even looks cute sitting in a pile of cheerios stuffing his face.

A lot of times, Gabey is a big help, and tattles or snatches things away, LOL. He's been off his game today.

Oh Baby, Hello Kitty!

I was browsing a site my mom suggested, and learned that there is a Hello Kitty themed maternity ward in Taiwan!! How totally cool!

"The 30-bed Hau Sheng Hospital in Yuanlin in central Taiwan claims to be the only institution of its kind authorized by the popular cartoon cat's parent company Sanrio Co Ltd.
Newborns get everything Hello Kitty but a set of whiskers, including pink or blue receiving blankets, nurses dressed in pink uniforms with cat-themed aprons, cot linen and room decor."

Link to a Fun Rendition of "White Christmas"

Got this in an email. very cute. It's a little cartoon rendition of the awesome song...
"White Christmas"
http://www.mesasoftware.com/merrychristmas.htm

Christmas Poem with a little bite to it.

*Twas the month before Christmas*

*When all through our land,*

*Not a Christian was praying*

*Nor taking a stand.*

*See the PC Police had taken away,*

*The reason for Christmas - no one could say.*

*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*

*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*

*It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say*

* December 25th is just a ' Holiday '.*

*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*

*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*

*CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*

*Something was changing, something quite odd! *

*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*

*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.*

*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*

* At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.*

*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears*

*You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.*

*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*

*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*

*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*

*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton !*

*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*

*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*

*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*

* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*

*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*

*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*

*So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'*

*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*

*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*

*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,

not Happy Holiday !*

Turkey Game for Thanksgiving

You can see the toll sin has taken... in their eyes.

I just browsed this article about 10 stars who've "lost their dreamboat status".
http://movies.msn.com/movies/galleryfeature/sunken-dreamboats/?photoidx=1

The main ones were Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson .... and even before I read the articles, I could see it in their eyes that they were GONE.
Tom's eyes are crazy now, I was shocked when I saw the picture... and wasn't surprised that his eyes were the exact topic of his article.

But it's not just his... you can see a lot of the eyes have changed... you can see the toll sin has taken on them. alchoholism... tax evasion... pride on a patheticly elevated level etc.

We make these actors our gods, and worship them, and throw offerings at them... and they're just human, and THEY FAIL. No one can have that much freedom and stay on course for long. I read Michael J Fox's book a few years ago, and I've never forgotten how he talked about actors being sooo spoiled... no traffic tickets, any kind of products they'd like for free, being able to "use", and being protected and coddled through all of their bad behavior. He was confessing it as his own struggle, but it applies to most of the actors in hollywood. And we allow it, and praise them, because they're good at pretending in front of a camera. We need to get actors off the pedestals they're on, and give them the same rules we have to live by, the same consequences for all the little things... not just wait til they're insane to say.."hey, you're not living right".


It's just sad. Our kids look up to these people. The most obnoxious actors are now doing voices for our kid's movie cartoons! Why?? Why on earth do SNL comedians have to become children's movie stars? Oh, that's a whole 'nother vent. I won't go into it all now. Our poor kids.

We all have problems, I'm not just pinpointing actors or picking on them. We all need to examine our own lives, and make our peace with Jesus our Savior. Only He can truly straighten us out, and help us through every struggle we have in this sin-sick world.